The Sith Lords Cut Ending
by Mithostwen
Summary: The title practically says it all. My rendition of three of the final scenes created but not included in the game. LSF Exile & Atton. If you've heard the sound files, you can guess what's coming. Too bad the Exile can't...
1. Chapter 1

The Sith Lords Cut Ending

Mithy's Rendition

Disclaimer: This story is the farthest from my own of any I have ever written. Not only did I steal all the characters from the creators of The Sith Lords, but 90 percent of the dialogue came straight from the incomplete sound files from the game, which Aurora and Highpriest posted online. (You can get there from Wookieepedia's article on Atton.) All I really did was add some detail. If you like it, that's probably because you like the game and it was, after all, those writers who thought all these scenes up too.

So here goes nothing. Oh, I almost forget: Ennyria, in the likely case that you don't know, is my light-side female exile. It's pronounced /enn-EER-ee-uh/. Not that it really matters. Feel free to call her Enn if that's easier. Also, I'm sorry that it will inevitably ruin the story a little bit for you that she's not the same exile as yours, but it's the standard KotOR Curse, right? Everybody's character is different and still "right". Maybe we'll get used to it eventually, but for now, please humor me and try to enjoy it anyway…

And many thanks to my friend Irish Whirlwind for reading over it and giving me feedback. It means a lot, even if you think (correctly) that I'm crazy.

Sorry, I lied before. _Now _here goes nothing.

VVVVV

Chapter 1

VVVVV

In the heart of Malachor V, kneeling precisely in the center of the massive "flower" of stone, Darth Traya was meditating patiently. The currents of the dark side, tainted with the echoes of death that haunted the ruined world, flowed around her in an ominous symphony. Yes, this place was the source of the greatest power she could hope to achieve: the power to destroy the Force itself.

But that was not the reason for her journey today.

She was waiting for her student, and unwilling student though she was, Kreia knew she would come. The exile's sense of duty and her naïve faith that no one was beyond redemption would draw her here, despite her fear of the world that had already altered her destiny forever. Kreia was well aware of the terror that welled up inside herapprentice whenever anyone so much as mentioned the planet's name, but that was all the more reason for little Ennyria to face it.

There was one last lesson for that one to learn, and it could be taught nowhere else.

_You refuse to cast off your weaknesses, and in doing so, leave me no choice but to dispose of them _for_ you. So come, Exile. Come face your darkest fears here at the end of all things. Only then will you be strong enough to face the darkness that lies ahead. _

VVVVV

From the shadows of the cave that opened into the yawning chamber, four pairs of eyes were fixed on the distant pinprick that was Kreia. Or three, to be more accurate, as one was blind and reached out instead through the Force.

"I say we fire a rocket at her right now, and blow her screaming, burning body into the heart of this planet," another whispered conspiratorially, sounding as if she wouldn't be sorry at all to break her vow that she wouldn't kill unless it was absolutely necessary.

She turned to the others for their reactions, flicking her red hair out of her eyes.

"It wouldn't work," Atton said dully. "If there were other distractions, maybe. If she wasn't telepathic, maybe. If you want to kill her like that, you need something else to occupy her attention. Otherwise you might just wound her. And then we'd _all_ be in trouble."

"Really," Mira returned sarcastically. "And when did _you _become an expert on killing Jedi?"

"Can I choose not to answer that question?"

She shot him a sharp and searching look, hoping she had misunderstood.

"Do not waste your words on banter; we're too exposed as it is. She may have sensed our presence already." Visas' calm, breathy cadence silenced them, as well as distracting Mira from wondering about Atton's most likely shady past.

"This battle will not be decided by weapons," Mical put in, probably meaning to be helpful by reminding them what they were up against, but only serving to make Mira more nervous than she already was.

"You are wrong," Visas countered him quietly. "Manipulation is Kreia's strength, not battle. We have a chance… We just have to figure out how to make use of it."

"All in favor of waiting for her to die of old age, say 'ay'."

"That wasn't funny, Atton," the disciple reprimanded him.

"Never said I was joking," the scoundrel muttered under his breath.

"Well, we aren't accomplishing anything at this rate," Mira pointed out, starting to get fed up with all their stalling when action was obviously necessary. "If we had the assassin droid here, I'd send _him _out, and he'd probably think it was fun. But, seeing as we don't, I guess _I'll _be the distraction."

Ignoring the looks of guilt and horror that were more or less mirrored on each of their faces, she left the safety of the tunnel.

T3-M4 and Bao-Dur had remained behind to try to get the _Ebon Hawk _back in working order, while HK-47 and Mandalore eagerly took on the task of blasting all the storm beasts within a two-mile radius of the ship. Ennyria had been missing since before any of them regained consciousness, and was presumably somewhere inside Trayus Academy by now. Though they hadn't actually seen her, the bond that connected her to each of her companions told them she was alive.

No one admitted to having any idea where G0-T0 or Bao-Dur's remote were, however. And that left the four who were now plotting their ambush on the newly revealed Sith Lord.

"Mira! Wait!" Mical called after her, but she didn't so much as turn around. In fact, she picked up the pace, afraid she would chicken out if she allowed herself time to think.

"Well, there's nothing for it. Might as well follow her now," Atton said, not sounding remotely disappointed. He unclipped his lightsaber from his belt and started after the bounty hunter. Visas followed, falling into step beside him in silence. The last one left, Mical finally accepted that as foolhardy as their nonexistent "plan" was, it was too late to come up with another. He drew his own lightsaber and jogged to catch up.

Having finally reached Kreia, Mira took one last deep breath to fortify her resolve and pressed the activation plate on her own weapon. The hum of the emerald blade was the only sound to break the choking silence.

"We've come a long way, Kreia… don't bother getting up."

The old woman didn't even glance at her—just smiled in that mysterious and disconcerting way that suggested she was looking at something no one else could see. Mira was proud that at least her words sounded brave, if she didn't actually feel that way. Intimidation wasn't needless cruelty in her line of work; it was necessary for survival, and she had become fairly adept at the technique.

"Ahh…" Kreia said at length, "the huntress. To come alone… you are braver than I thought."

Mira's confidence wavered. Was she really that obvious? How was it the old witch never failed to say exactly the words she didn't want to hear?

She was spared having to come up with a reply by the arrival of the others.

"She is not alone," Mical announced, his voice ringing loudly enough to echo. "We stand with her. And with her, stand all the Jedi."

"And now I come in, saying something suitably heroic."

Despite their dire situation, Mira rolled her eyes.

_Only Atton, of all the idiots in the galaxy, would say something so idiotic to a Sith Lord … _

Yet in that moment, she found herself silently cheering him on.

She chanced a glance over her shoulder, to see Visas approaching as well. Their blades formed a rainbow of sorts, piercing through the eerie red glow that emanated from the floor: Atton's amber yellow, Visas' bright amethyst, and Disciple's sky blue in addition to Mira's own green.

"Children with lightsabers," Kreia said with contempt. "But not Jedi, I think."

Despite her scornful words, the Sith Lord finally got to her feet.

"Come close," Darth Traya bid them, with a sudden and suspicious air of consideration. "Let me look upon you and see what the exile's teaching has forged."

She made a show of looking at each of them in turn, though Mira had her doubts whether Kreia even had eyes under that hood. Nevertheless, she could feel the darkness probing her mind, and she knew that blind or not, Kreia was seeing an awful lot more than she would have liked.

It required a conscious effort not to flinch.

"A reluctant assassin, a worshipper of the vanquished Jedi, a blinded slave… and a fool." Kreia turned that unsettling smile upon them again. "Which of you wishes to try yourselves against me? As you can see, I am unarmed."

None of them felt sufficiently reassured to take her up on the offer.

And the answer Traya finally received was not the one she had hoped for.

"You really can't come up with a better insult for me than that? It's getting old," Atton drawled, putting on a good show of sounding casual. Each word sounded like an exasperated sigh. "Fool, fool, fool. It's all I ever hear any—"

Suddenly he froze as if solid, a shimmering barrier of purple energy encasing him from head to toe. Stasis field. So the comedy was over. Mira took the time Atton had bought to refocus herself. No more letting her guard down.

"I've had enough of your snide contempt, Atton," Kreia spat, looking as if she had half a mind to kill him and be done with it. "Now be silent. I am beginning to see that that may very well be the worst torture I can inflict upon you."

The demonstration of Force power caused Mira and the others to hesitate longer yet, but Kreia returned her attention to them now, and they knew they couldn't wait much longer.

Slowly and deliberately, Darth Traya finally nodded toward Mical. Mira grimaced, ashamed for being glad it wasn't her. Visas only frowned in worry, and Atton's expression didn't betray in the slightest what was going on in his head.

"Come, boy, face me now— do not make this one of the many battles you have run from." Her tone dared any of the others to interfere.

Mical stepped forward, looking every inch the hero, and aimed a lightning-quick thrust at Kreia. Seemingly without effort, she sidestepped his blade; once, twice, three times.

Then, apparently growing bored, she lifted him into the air with a Force Crush as easily as if he were a toy.

Mira lunged at her, but Kreia sent her flying with a negligent flick of the Force from her handless stump and addressed the wheezing Disciple. His face, contorted in pain, was going blue.

"Think!" she cried viciously. "Think before you throw away your life for her. Think of everything you will lose by dying. A love, requited. A hope of another life, beyond the shadow of the Jedi. Think before you give it up so quickly."

Evidently through with him, she tossed him disdainfully to the ground, much as she had with Mira, and turned to Visas instead. Mical continued to gasp and clutched at his chest, lying there in a broken heap.

"And you, blind one, you have hungered to strike me down ever since you saw the bond the exile and I share." Kreia's voice sounded like it was dripping poison with every word. It made Mira's blood boil. She picked herself up off the ground where she'd landed several yards away and started for the old woman once more.

_How can you talk to Visas that way?_

But the Miraluka was not so easily moved to anger. Though she stood in the core of the world that had driven her Master into madness with a hunger for death, her relaxed air suggested this was no more than a simple debate of philosophy.

With a measure of serenity that yet surpassed Kreia's own, she replied, "Can you not feel the Force running through me, even past the veil, past your bloodied eyes? You know you cannot win. The Force runs strong within you, Traya, but in the howling of a storm, it is difficult to hear the whisper of the blade. You have forever been the blind one. You were given a gift few are ever given, and yet you let your gift of sight warp you, tw—"

Calmly, as if flicking a bit of dust off her robes, Kreia wrenched the Miraluka off her feet and began to crush her in the same manner as she had Mical. Visas cried out in pain, but seconds later she couldn't have managed a whisper.

"You think your existence under your Lord was torture, Miraluka? _I _will make you _see_."

She let Visas collapse onto the floor, where she lay still. Only then did the dark creature that had called herself their ally return her attention to Mira.

The bounty hunter wasn't kidding herself with optimism anymore. She had seen how easily Kreia disposed of the others, and she knew Visas was probably twice as strong as she was when it came to resisting and commanding the Force. Still, she hardly had a choice, and if she was going down, it wasn't going to be without a fight.

Kreia's voice had a grandmotherly ring to it when she addressed the redhead again.

"And you. You were stronger than I thought— to spare the beast that wished to kill you. Yes, I felt it, faintly, even here on Malachor. So come, huntress. You have tracked me so far and killed many beasts to be here. Come. Cast away your past for this moment."

Mira sent a bolt of Force lightning at her, which Kreia deftly turned aside. Then, with another of those twisted smiles, she sent a full-fledged storm of white electric heat down upon the bounty hunter. Writhing in agony on the glaring red floor, Mira couldn't even think clearly enough to resent the irony. Her hair and her robes were smoking, her skin burned, and her insides felt like they were being stabbed repeatedly with a hot knife. A chain of explosions seemed to burst inside her head.

The pain went on for another agonizing ten seconds before Kreia abruptly stopped. Blinking blearily at the brown and black blur above her, Mira couldn't quite figure out what it was, but Kreia supplied the answer soon after.

"And now... at last, the fool. You only delay the inevitable. You have been difficult to sense before... but not now. You can cloak your mind only for so long. It is only a matter of coaxing the right thought to the surface."

Atton didn't pretend to ignore her words, though he gave no reply. He simply stood his ground, and let every last ounce of his hatred show in the venomous glare he shot her. So what if anger didn't befit a Jedi? He wasn't acting on it. Yet. Jaq was fighting to break loose, but Atton still held him down for now. He knew what "thought" Kreia was referring to, and it was the same one from which he drew the strength to resist the darkness that was almost tangible in this place.

_The exile._

This was what he was made for: to be the last one standing between Ennyria and danger. Somehow it gave him strength when he thought he had none left, even when she wasn't nearby.

Still, he wasn't quite ready when Kreia gave voice to that exact thought a second later.

"Your desire to protect the Jedi... and the hope that she truly cares about you... She will fall before me, you know. And when I am done with her, she will view you with all the contempt I do for a murderer such as you."

"No! She'll _never_ fall, not to—"

But suddenly he felt a substantial amount of his life force leave him, sucked away in an instant like air into a vacuum, and watched a bolt of red lightning lance from his body to the Sith Lord's. No longer able to stand, he dropped to his knees. She paralyzed him with a stasis field once again, in that uncomfortable and demeaning position, and called out to Sleeps-with-vibroblades.

At that point, Atton would gladly have accepted the call of the dark side if he could only take the two Sith down.

_We failed, Enn. I'm sorry…_

"And that is the last of them. Take them. They are strong in the Force… and they will have their uses. Except, perhaps, for this one." She indicated Atton, looking pensive. "My only use for the fool is as a corpse. Do as you will with him, but leave him where he will be found. I will remain here and await the one who comes."

VVVVV

_to be continued with scene 2..._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

VVVVV

Ennyria's cyan blade flashed non-stop, cutting down Sith Assassins like grass. In some of the more densely occupied rooms, she would merely call on her power of the Force and blast them into a useless heap with Stasis Field and then Force Storm.

She had no way of comprehending that, at this very moment, her friends, her "weaknesses", were being subjected to the very same torture.

There was a morbid irony to it; Kreia would have been proud.

But the exile was only tired. Not physically—she was a Jedi Master with Force power enough to sustain her entire party through a battle like this—but her morale was beginning to break down. This was the perfect Jedi trap, not because the countless waves of Sith were strong enough to defeat her, but because no Jedi could commit murder after murder for this long without feeling as rotten and tainted as the Sith she slew.

Nevertheless, she kept it up, because she knew this guilt was exactly what she was _intended_ to feel. This whole battle was a test. Kreia was so fond of them, and after the visions on Korriban, Ennyria was finally learning to recognize one when she saw it.

_But you know I'll pass, Kreia. What is it you hope to accomplish by slowing me down?_

Her wearied mind held no answer, so she had no choice but to press on.

Still, she had a sinking suspicion that this question was the most urgent of her problems, not the one she was forced to face here.

She wished she had Atton's intuition right about now.

VVVVV

Atton's stasis field didn't wear off until quite some time later. He rubbed fiercely at his eyes, which were painfully dry from being held open so long, and cursed Kreia as he got to his feet. She had knocked him out while he was still paralyzed, and now he found himself alone in a completely different room. It was lit only by red circles of fluorescent light, and crowded with skeletal gray pillars aligned in perfectly straight rows. Other than that, it might as well have been an empty cell.

He had a bad feeling that was exactly what it _was_.

The tomblike silence was broken only when the door on the far wall cycled open. As Atton had half expected, it was Darth Sion who stepped through.

"And I get the fool," the Sith Lord growled, in his grating, beastlike rumble of a voice.

"Funny—that's what _I _was thinking," Atton shot back without missing a beat. He braced himself for the attack he was sure would follow, settling automatically into his Echani stance.

But that turned out to be worse than useless, because rather than coming after him with a blade, Sion lifted Atton into the air with the Force. Judging by the strangling pressure, he had his insubstantial grip on the scoundrel's throat.

_Cheater. Don't tell me you're afraid to face an untrained Jedi in fair combat when we both know you can't be killed._

Atton would have made another attempt to goad him into making a stupid mistake, except that he could no longer speak. His vision started to fuzz, blackness creeping in at the edges.

Just before he would have lost consciousness, Sion's red blade blazed to life, a reflection of the crimson lighting just as he himself seemed to be a manifestation of the lifeless gray room.

Atton tried to use the Force to knock the weapon from his torturer's hand, but with no success.

Then the blood-colored blade was a fan of light, and Atton felt a horrible burning sensation in his shoulder. It felt as if something molten was eating away at him alive, and a cry was torn from his throat.

Sion finally allowed him to fall to the floor, none too gently. Taking in ragged gulps of air, Atton instinctively reached for his arm to try to ease the pain with pressure.

His fingers closed on empty air.

His arm was gone, sheared clean off.

He didn't bother looking at the floor where it must have fallen, but glared daggers at the Sith Lord as he turned and began to walk away.

Summoning the same willpower that allowed him to keep on standing no matter how wounded when he fought at his allies' side, Atton staggered to his feet.

"Running away? I'm not done with you yet," he challenged the calmly retreating figure. His voice sounded weak, even to him. But he wasn't letting Sion go if he was going to hurt the others. And right now, Atton didn't particularly care about his own life.

The Sith Lord turned, with slow and ominous patience. He gave an attempt at a grin, which only resulted in making him look more sinister yet.

"Nor I you."

He lifted Atton off the ground again. His feet and one remaining arm dangled uselessly, but this time Atton didn't waste his strength struggling. He stared into Sion's eyes, the one good one and the hopelessly atrophied white one that reminded him of Kreia. The defiance inside him burned hotter at the mere thought of her.

"I will remake you," Sion was saying, mercilessly crushing the scoundrel's throat tighter and tighter. "So that when I look upon you it shall be like a mirror. Then I shall let you die."

"There's… nothing worse you can do to me," Atton choked, forcing the words out with an effort. "Take your time."

_Because every second you waste on me is another one Enn doesn't have to spend fighting you. You're winning, Sith, and at the same time you're losing. I can't wait till she gets hold of you._

VVVVV

_to be continued in scene 3..._


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

VVVVV

Half an hour later, Ennyria let her blade shrink out of existence with a hiss. She wiped the sweat from her brow and called on the Force to heal her minor wounds. Sion, more human than she ever would have guessed, had now met his very human death. He hadn't been terribly powerful in battle, once his will started to break down, but his words echoed still in her mind. She had no doubt that his warning about Kreia had been sincere; his loathing of his old master outweighed even his hatred of his killer. That was why he let himself fall to her blade. Knowing he was no more than Kreia's pawn, he was at last willing to accept the death he had held at bay for so long.

_In that regard, he and I weren't so different. But I hope mine doesn't come today._

She turned to face the door he had deliberately been guarding, and it now opened obligingly before her.

She followed the narrow path that was her only way onward, letting her consciousness meld with the Force so her perceptions could reach farther ahead. She wanted a clearer idea of what she would be facing before she actually arrived there. Knowing Kreia, she knew better than to expect the best-case scenario. In Malachor's final hour, she felt, anything could happen.

Anything at all.

She was so deep in the Force, stretching so far ahead, that she almost failed to see his broken body lying off to the side of the path.

Her heart skipped a beat.

_Oh, Force, no, it can't be…_

"Atton!"

She ran to him, all thoughts of Darth Traya and destiny forgotten. Digging frantically through her robes for a life-support pack even as she ran, she knelt at his side and looked him over, trying to judge how badly he was hurt.

Her hands went still only an instant later.

She couldn't deny it; he looked bad. His right arm was missing, his face was tinged slightly purple, his neck looked bruised, and he was lying in an awful lot of blood. It matted his dark hair in spikes that might have looked dashing if not for the circumstances.

She was just too late. He wasn't going to make it, no matter what she did now. Anyone other than Atton would almost surely have been dead already from such injuries, but he had something keeping him going that she had never understood.

_And now I never will. Atton, Atton, what were you doing here at all?_

"You're… alive," he murmured, startling her. His eyes blinked open one after the other, as if he couldn't quite make them obey. She thought she caught a flicker of a smile on his face. Despite whatever pain he had endured, his eyes still had the same defiant spark of life as always. A lump rose in her throat as she tried to smile back at him.

"Did… I… save you yet? Your eyes… that bad, eh?"

He turned his face away, no longer playing at humor. His voice was quiet, more strained, when he spoke again.

"Always was ugly… now the outside matches. Was waiting for this, but… 'S not fair… let you down…"

"Shh, you've lost a lot of blood," she tried to quiet him, unable to stand watching the terrible effort it cost him to speak. She brushed his hair away from his face, trying not to let her hand tremble. Was there nothing more she could do?

She called upon the Force again, and let a wave of healing flow through her fingers, but Atton only winced in pain. It wasn't fair; healing was her second-strongest skill, and it still wasn't enough. Maybe if she'd worked at it just a little harder she would have been able to save him, or maybe it was simply beyond the Force to replace so much lost blood. She didn't know, and now she would always wonder if it was her fault he died.

"Was s'posed to save you… 'S tired of living anyway… too many deaths," Atton went on, wincing again and ignoring her half-hearted attempts to silence him. "Never told you… lied to you…"

He gave a dark chuckle, the same dry laugh she had heard so many times, mocking himself just as much as the world.

"You did save me, Atton," she told him, his sincerity opening her own safely guarded heart for once. "It was you—more than anyone else. I couldn't ask for any more. _I _should be the one saying those things, not you."

His face fell, and his laugh died away. He only held her gaze for one more moment before turning away again. Somehow her words had only made his suffering worse. She didn't know how, so she didn't know how to comfort him.

"I don't want you to see me like this. I don't want to die in front of you. Can't bear it… Loved you from the moment I first saw you, thought you were a dream… meant every word… tried to play it off as a joke… wasn't funny…"

Her eyes burned and her vision blurred, and she realized that for the first time in almost a decade, she was crying. Impulsively, she reached out and eased him up just a little, so she could pillow his head on her arm, but she didn't dare move him more than that. She couldn't fake any more smiles now, just tried not to let too many of her tears fall on his upturned face.

"You never needed to tell me, Atton. I knew," she choked, looking him straight in the eye. She wanted him to know she meant it. "I always knew. I tried to tell myself I was imagining it; tried to tell myself I didn't love you… You know how Jedi are."

He chuckled again, and then grimaced when it hurt to do so. She felt horrible for forgetting; she shouldn't have made him laugh.

"Atton…" she began, and then trailed off. She couldn't remember what she was going to say. She just wanted to say his name, because now it still meant something. After today, it would only be a stab of pain through her heart.

She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the full sting of the painful irony. They both had loved each other and neither had said a word. She understood why he had been reluctant to tell her—a Jedi who had renounced all emotional attachments. And after all, his first attempts at flirting had been shot down almost immediately. But _she _should have spoken up sooner, rather than waiting until his last few breaths.

"Enn," he said quietly, a responsive echo. "I know… the irony, right? Story of my life…"

He chuckled again, wincing, and gently brushed the tears from her face with his only hand.

"Hurts when I laugh," he said, even more faintly, with just a hint of his old rakish grin. But in his eyes there was a depth of feeling stronger than any she'd ever seen, at least directed at her. The tears fell more quickly, and this time she didn't bother trying not to cry on him.

_ I don't deserve you. So I guess this is only fair, isn't it? Why, then, do I feel like this is the end of everything good in the universe?_

She couldn't bear to look at him, but she couldn't look away either.

"Hurts… You… saved me… joke's on me…"

He winced again, and let his hand drop. She caught it just as one last chuckle escaped his lips, and only because of her Jedi reflexes. She held it tight, as if she could somehow keep him alive by holding on.

"Hurts when I laugh… Hurts…"

His arm went limp, and she watched the mocking gleam in his eyes die.

_Atton, don't leave…_

But he was already gone.

She lowered his body back to the ground, hating to lose yet another piece of herself to Malachor's greedy depths, but there was nothing else for it. She would come back for him, assuming she survived her encounter with Kreia.

_Kreia._

She'd be happy now, wouldn't she? The "fool" was gone, and her precious protégé had learned her lesson: don't hold onto what you cannot bear to lose. Oh yes, Kreia would be so proud. Ennyria's "weakness" was at last removed, and she was fully prepared to resign herself to her selfless duty, regardless of risk or cost.

Ennyria felt sick.

_Don't think about her; that's what Atton would have said. This moment isn't for Kreia. It's for him._

The weight that had seemed about to crush her lifted, just a little. It was replaced by a lump in her throat and a gaping hole in her heart, but those were nothing to be ashamed of. That was love.

"Good-bye," she whispered. As a final sign of respect, she untied the red band from her left arm, the only possession she carried that actually belonged to her, and pressed it into Atton's hand. She closed his fingers around it, and bent down and kissed his forehead.

"May the Force be—"

She stopped herself.

The loss of Atton finally, truly, and painfully hit home.

After taking a deep, shuddering breath and slowly letting it out, she began again.

"May you be with the Force."

Then she picked herself up off the ground, and set one foot in front of the other as she continued down the jagged path she was still destined to walk.

She didn't allow herself to look back.

But an echo of his voice came to her nonetheless. She didn't even remember when he had said it, but it didn't matter, and the memory brought a ghost of a smile to her lips.

"_Well, don't get too attached to me—I don't like it."_

She was glad that, for once, she had completely disregarded his advice.

_I love you, you liar. _

VVVVV


End file.
